Not that Hillary Clinton admitted to any of that in her nonconcession concession speech Tuesday night, after Obama attained the delegate votes he needs for the Democratic presidential nomination. For someone giving indications she would like to be Obama's running mate, Clinton was surprisingly ungracious. In fact, if you had just awakened from a (blissful) 17-month sleep, you would have thought she had won.

"Because of you, we won together the swing states necessary to get to 270 electoral votes," she told the crowd in New York City. "I want the nearly 18 million Americans who voted for me to be respected, to be heard and no longer to be invisible."

A new poll shows either Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in a statistical tie with John McCain. According to the poll released Tuesday morning, both Obama and Clinton are locked in a dead heat with the Arizona senator. If Obama were to win the nomination, he would get 47% of the vote compared to 46% for McCain -- a statistical tie given the poll's 3% point margin of error. Should Clinton win the nomination, the poll suggests she would get 49% compared to McCain's 47% -- another statistical tie.

While Clinton and Obama match up equally with McCain, the two Democrats appear to be drawing support from different groups of voters. "Clinton appears to do a little bit better than Obama among older voters, women, and self-identified Democrats against McCain; Obama's numbers may be slightly better among younger voters and those who describe themselves as Republicans and Independents," Holland said.

Right on, tabula!

Obama, McCain locked in dead heat

(CNN) – One day after the general election officially kicked off, a new CNN "poll of polls" suggests Barack Obama and John McCain are locked in a tight race for the White House. According to CNN's average of four recent national polls, the-newly minted Democratic presidential nominee holds a narrow 2 point lead over McCain among registered voters, 47 percent to 45 percent. Nearly 10 percent say they are undecided. The polls included in the sample were conducted between May 21 and June 3, all before Obama officially wrapped up the nomination Tuesday night. The poll of polls included recent surveys from CBS, Gallup, Pew, and Newsweek.

I'm sorry but I've a feeling the "diversity" strategy of the Dems this year is going to backfire with McCain easily getting the presidency..

McCain is too old and sick -- McCain has had 4 melanomas removed in the last 15 years: on his left shoulder in 1993, on his temple and upper left arm in 2000 and on his nose in 2002. The most dangerous was the one removed from his temple in 2000, classified by his doctors as an invasive melanoma, stage IIA, on a standard scale that makes stage IV the most serious. The 2000 surgery left McCain not only with a puffy jaw but also with a scar down his neck. It will kill him come election day.

The medical overview comes a week after Republican rival John McCain allowed some reporters access to his voluminous health records.

Although he hasn't had a physical in 16 months, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has been in "excellent health" and is medically fit to serve as president, his longtime doctor wrote in a letter released by the campaign Thursday. Still, campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki said, "With no surgery or hospital stays, this is a complete summary of his doctor visits and medical records for the past 2 decades." The letter, written by Dr. David L. Scheiner of Chicago, noted that Obama, 46, had a family history of cancer. His mother died of ovarian cancer and a grandfather of prostate cancer. A prostate-specific antigen test -- generally recommended annually for men over 45 who are African American or otherwise at a high risk of prostate cancer, and often suggested annually for other men over 50 -- detected no issues for Obama. The campaign did not say when he is expected to be screened again.

The Illinois senator has smoked intermittently over the years, Scheiner wrote in the overview, but is now "using Nicorette gum with success. His build was lean and muscular with no excess body fat," Scheiner said, based on Obama's last physical, conducted Jan. 15, 2007. "His physical examination was completely normal." The brief letter contrasted with Sen. John McCain's decision to let a selected group of reporters spend 3 hours with about 1,200 pages of health records last week. The records showed that McCain, 71, the presumed Republican presidential nominee, is in good health, although he has a 15-year history of skin cancers, including a minor case in February, and has had bouts with precancerous polyps in his colon, kidney cysts and bladder stones.

Like a comic-book superhero, Obama is there to help, out of the sheer goodness of a heart we need not know or understand. For as with all Magic Negroes, the less real he seems, the more desirable he becomes.

Sincerely, if you think it thru the sacrifice he makes far outweighs the benefits he'll get should he really be elected president.

Senator Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, have often drawn strong support in their political campaigns from African-American voters. While Obama seeks an edge with African-American voters, Clinton continues to shore up her support among women. Rutgers University Professor Ross Baker says Clinton's surprise win in last week's New Hampshire primary was largely a result of a last-minute shift in support for Clinton by women voters. "I think that she carries considerable advantages with her into the remaining primaries. She has lots of money and she obviously has gotten the support of women even more strongly, I think, than anybody had imagined," said Baker.

Clinton is seeking to become the first woman president, while Obama hopes to become the first African-American president. One new national poll shows Obama gaining on Clinton among Democrats, following his win in the Iowa caucuses and close second-place finish to Clinton in the New Hampshire primary. The Washington Post-ABC News poll has Clinton at 42%, followed by Obama at 37% and Edwards at 11%. Obama's share is up 14% since the same poll last month. A second poll by New York Times and CBS News showed Clinton with 42%, Obama with 27% and Edwards 11%.

basha, I just could not believe Dems were really going for Hillary - I mean, she was not serious enough, with all those lies and fake stories. Remember when she said in relation to her visit in 1996 in Bosnia, "I remember landing under sniper fire," in March 2008. "There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base." News footage of the event, however, showed her claims to have been wide of the mark, and reporters who accompanied her stated that there was no sniper fire. Her account was ridiculed by ABC News as "like a scene from Saving Private Ryan".